First of all, a big mea culpa. I was pretty negative about the BGG mobile page when it came out, but its actually grown on me. Meanwhile, the best airline in the world (Southwest) continues to have a terrible, terrible application! It forgets my logon, when I say "Check in," it asks me for a flight number. How about "Check in to my next flight, the only flight I have booked with you"

But its really the only thing bad about the airline.

I flew out Friday (less stressful, and hey -- another day off work is fine with me) and got to the airport a bit early to read. At some point my name was called and I was offered the following deal.

"We'll get you to Niagara 10 minutes later on a different flight for a travel voucher worth $100 + the value of today's trip."

Done and done. I arrived in Niagara ten minutes after my scheduled arrival, but much wealthier. Also, nothing about the experience went viral.

Many many people were delayed over the weekend because of the weather in Atlanta. That's just bad luck -- bad weather can happen anywhere -- so I was fortunate I didn't have to suddenly hitch a ride for 14 hours (like some other attendees did).

There's a decent chance I had the best inbound airline experience of any attendee. Much improved from last year, when the wife got stuck overnight in BUF on her way back....

Jay Tummelson had a copy of this set out, so I played it. (I may avoid new games, but I'm not fanatic about it). This is kind of a Trans-America but more, and I'm told its based on 20th Century Limited, but improved. (Haven't played).

Steffan O'Sullivan joined the game, and originally thought it was called "The Most Famous Train in the World," which is what the bottom of the box says (on the side).

The game seemed fine, although it fizzles towards the end instead of growing towards an exploding conclusion.

We then played two quick games of this (all games of TMC are quick). I honestly cannot remember who I played with, which I blame on the lingering effects of yesterday's travel and some ill health. I know that the cat didn't win.

"Do you want to play a three player cooperative trick taking game?""I never thought I'd hear those phrases combined like that. Yes, I do."

Joe Huber (who is making a point of trying many of the Japanese games) introduced me to this. You have three suits, some duel/triple suited cards, and some goal cards. Much like bridge, the only communication should be from card play (you can pass a card before each trick). It's a fascinating morsel. I'd have loved to see the real card sharks try this.

I hadn't eaten all day, so at this point I left and went to Koi, the restaurant I'd failed to eat at all of last year. It's schedule was a mystery to me, but the zeroth order approximation was simple: "It's never open."

But it was open and excellent, (and I'm not a fan on Chinese, but this is sort of pan-asian). My new favorite restaurant of the Gathering. After that I just chatted with people and crashed.

I had high hopes for the theme -- build up a theme park and then watch hard economic times destroy it. I liked the idea that you played with a subset of factions to give it variability from game to game.

But why did those faction have to be wacky? Vampires, Ninjas? OK, a mob run theme park has happened. (We call it Las Vegas). But in any case.

Since Steffan had sleeved his copy this was amazingly difficult to shuffle. Grab a pile of cards, which it slip out of your hands all across the table. Repeat.

A fun experience, but only an OK game. There's a decent amount of bowb-ing, if you are into it.

Hey it's a quick game that I want to get fifty plays of, and I want to not have it on my "Games I own which I haven't played in a long time," list. So we played two quick games while we were waiting to get to our next big game ....

I played the second edition. Never really understood what I was doing.

I'm intrigued by Eklund's games, so I jumped into this. To say I understood it would be to lie. In fact, I think this may very well be the game I am worst at, that I have the most refined anti-skill, of any game I have tried in years.

But at the beginning, I didn't know that. Dunning Kruger effect and all that.

I started under the assumption that if I got a fair combination of cards (say two refineries, two robonauts and a thruster, coupled with my startin crew), I would be able to build an awesome rocket (tm) and start a colony and the lost time wouldn't be that bad.

But the number of combinations overwhelmed me and I dithered further. Geoff shot off to Demos and refueled, which made me go "oh! that's clever" but increased my options. Then I picked a bad one and failed.

H.F. 3rd edition has a 3VP card for Heroism for those brave explorers who tried their best, but were doomed by bad luck or whatever. It requires the unanimous consent of all players to be awarded. The picture is the trails of the Challenger explosion. (Iconic, for those of us who saw it live).

I only mention that because the final scores were something like 40-33-3. The last was exact. In my defense, I did have a claim, but it got jumped. (The PRC faction should not be used with beginners, we later decided).

This may have been the first Gathering in a twelve years where I haven't played Race. (It was there as a prototype for several years, back when I played prototypes). I did play Jump Drive, I suppose. But Tom was fiddling on his iPad to playtest the new digital version, so I did play one digital game.

I went with the typical "Just assume I know everything and click things fast," so I missed a few points of the UI, but it was incredibly pretty and general understandble. The pictures are already online.

Got in a single game with Joe R, Ron and Lou. As the Orions I got cut off from every other player and could do naught by gnash my teeth as Joe's mutagen points took off (aided by a discovery or tech that granted him extra mutation points!).

I still like this game, but I'd had a rough day in space, so I called it a night.

Spring arose on Sunday, as the snowfall had finally melted, so it was warm enough to play baseball! David, Lou, Mark and I played a season (3 series of 3 games each) and a final.

David walked away with it, losing only 2 games and winning 10. And just like in the real game, something I'd never seen before happened.

Playing David I'd already witnessed two clutch players when he played a bases-empty double/HR. I could stop one, and I considered stopping the double and letting the HR through, but thought "Eh, he's already played two clutch players, what are the odds he has two more."

I should have let the HR go and prevented the double. Would have saved me a run. Amazing.

Another long game (and a new one at that) that I wanted to try. I'd had an offer in San Antonio, but that was on a night after work and I was tired. But conventions are meant for long games, so we set up a 3 age (only) game of this with Geoff, Lou and myself.

I didn't do well, but it was a learning game and I was interested the whole way through. I picked up a copy since I think this will work well with the TaoLing or as a solitaire game (where I can play over the course of several evenings).

But the game did take seven hours (and change) and so after dinner I just chatted with people and didn't play anything else.

"Do I want to play Mombasa?"Well, this is a game that's been around for a few years and people are still playing it, so that seems like a game I should try. After all, its survived the staying power curve. "OK,"As the game is getting set up I have the nagging feeling that I've played before. It's overwhelming. The board looks familiar. The tiles don't, but I could swear I've played it before. In fact, I think I played it against Larry Levy. Two years ago. I fish out my phone.

I haven't marked a play or rated this game. Odd. None of the rules jump out at me, so maybe I haven't played it before, but the feeling of Deja Vu is pretty strong. (I've played games I know I've played before and remembered none of the rules, but normally I'm pretty good with them. Getting old sucks).

We play the game and its pretty good, aided by the fact that I win, but this is bugging me. I go find Larry."Did we play Mombasa two years ago,""Yes, and it was a real pain to get you to play because it was a prototype."

Ah, that explains it. Mystery solved. I log two plays of the game and go on with my day.

"Kriblen?""Kribbler?""It's like Stockholm, but with an 'n' instead of an 'm,' Well, not quite, but close."We wave Heli over and have her pronounce it several times. It doesn't help.

Thankfully easier to play than pronounce. This is a pretty great improvement over Yahtzee. Category scoring is matchpoint-style (You get one point for each player you have a higher score than, and one point for not busting ... assuming you don't bust). But you do the categories in order. Categories are things like "You must have more red dice than blue." But after each roll you can either use the current category or the next Krib...thingy.

Literally the poster child game on my wall of shame. I think I'd gone 3000 days without playing, despite owning. So Joe R and I got up a game.

My Americans were advancing through his Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. (Scenario 7? No Tanks?)

At an early play I advanced to prepare for another advance into Melee. Joe (no fool he) discarded to stock up on ambushes and when I did advance he had two. Unfortunately for him, I had three (and the numerical advantage going in).

I actually had pretty great luck, getting three "Score 1 VP for each enemy casualty" to make it close during our Battle of the Bulge game, but my troops poised to scoot off the board for (double) points got trapped in multiple wires and eventually the game timed out.

One of the great systems of the last few years, so I was happy to get in a game of this. As the Delian league I spawned a ton of cities and a fair number of bonus cards, enough to overcome the loss of Athens.

This was the only new (defined as <12 months old) Euro (60-90 minute) game I had been hoping to try. Steffan got this in a math trade and was about to retire, so we swiped it from him and played.

I seem to really only be playing short games (10-30 minutes) or long ones. For some reason most of the new hour long games don't grab me anymore. I think the shorter games have a better decisions per minute ratio (much better) and the longer games have room to breathe, but who knows. I like what I like.

Still, I wanted to try this and I liked it (although I did poorly and I'm not thrilled with the idea that one player can start in 1st and 2nd and another can start in 7th and 8th). Worth trying again, I think.

At this point I decided to retire. My days of staying up to 3am are mostly over, and I certainly didn't want to get into the habit.

By those point, I had a sneaking suspicion that I was pretty bad at this game, and the second play confirmed it. With support elements I now had to juggle up to 6 types of cards, and I kept dropping the balls.

"Oh, this works ... except I need this reactor and it modifies thrust by -1 ..., no. That doesn't work. Aha! If I use the ... no that's too heavy."

I at least sent out a robonaut and claimed one of the asteroids while trying to build a refinery package. A few turns later I got my refinery package only for the game to end the turn before I could build my factory, as both the other players had finished their 3rd (!).

In my defense, I got nailed by a solar flare and then missed a radiation roll on the next mission. If either of those worked ...

Everyone agreed I was heroic, and I had kept my claim ... so, this time I got a fourth point.

Games that I'm this bad at are phenomenally intriguing, so I bought a copy.

One of the prettier games I've seen, and the newest entry into the "FITS/Take it easy/Karuba" family (which I enjoy). A nice fast filler game, which I needed after another "In space, nobody can hear you bang your head against the table," game.

No, I didn't play this. I lived it. By this point I'm not feeling too well, so I took a nap and then got up to have dinner and play a game, but after a bite and quick walk I decided to try to just sleep it off.

Friedemann Friese has forged a flashy filler where functions flow into the future.

Seriously, a "legacy filler game" is an interesting idea and while admittedly gimmicky this isn't bad. If I had small children (instead of large teenagers) I'd probably pick this up, it builds up nicely.